Val’s Toy Chest- DC TV

Hey readers- I’m back with your regularly scheduled toy column where I discuss what’s currently in-store as well as what we’ve got coming in soon with a healthy dose of toy flashbacks and Comic, TV and Movie news. This week: toy and merchandise ideas for your Halloween celebrations, a little bit about Star Wars, DC Television News and as much toy intel as I can fit in this column.

Halloween is about a month and a half away but we’ve got horror merchandise ready to fulfill your ghoulish wish list in stock as well as incoming. Funko has been pumping out a ton of new POP vinyl figures and we’ve got nearly the complete set of Rocky Horror Picture Show in with Columbia on the way shortly. POP figures from Guillermo Del Toro’s The Strain should be hitting within the week as well as the eagerly anticipated (not by me though, since I adamantly refuse to watch the movie) Regan McNeil figure from The Exorcist. Currently in stock as of this writing are horror POPs of Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, Ash, Cthulhu(regular and glow-in-the-dark versions), Buffy Summers, Sam from Trick R Treat, most of the classic Universal Monsters and more. I also have a limited amount of Funko ReAction Horror figures left including Jason, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers. Recently announced for the line is a Leatherface figure which should hit sometime before the end of the year. As far as non-toys go we have a selection of horror magnets and buttons featuring favorite images and poster art from Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Exorcist.

Keeping with the Funko theme, we are getting a restock on Star Wars POPs of Princess Leia in her iconic star-puffs look from A New Hope and Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing Pilot outfit. We have also started receiving some of the POPs of characters from The Force Awakens including the villainous Kylo Ren. Scarlet Witch from Avengers: Age of Ultron is back to mystify your collection and the Previews Exclusive DC New 52 POPs of The Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman are all ready to join your POP Justice League. Speaking of Star Wars, we will be stocking as much new product from The Force Awakens as possible and so far we’ve gotten some of the basic 3 3/4″ figures, Micro Machines, Plastic 12″ figures with vehicles and the previously mentioned POPs.

In DC Television news- the trailers for the upcoming fourth season of Arrow and the second season of The Flash have hit the internet. I haven’t watched the Flash one yet and I’ve only caught a couple of the Arrow ones but there’s some good stuff coming and also some bad stuff if you aren’t a fan of a certain relationship on the show. (I am not by the way.) My most anticipated storylines involve Black Canary/Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), John Diggle (David Ramsey) and Speedy/Thea Queen(Willa Holland). The three aforementioned characters have been left in charge of Star City in Oliver Queen’s absence but need him to return to his role as the Arrow due to events in the season premiere (October 7th). The season will find Oliver adopting the Green Arrow moniker, character debuts from Anarky, Mr. Terrific and Damien Darhk as well as an appearance by John Constantine (Matt Ryan) and the resurrection of Sara Lance (Caity Lotz). As we head into the Flash/Arrow crossover episodes, events and characters from both shows will feed into the mid-season premiere of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow which has already started filming. More details of the latter show have emerged including the first look at Hawkgirl (Ciara Renee) and Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) in their costumes. Wings will reportedly be CGI’d in. The Flash will see DC heroes Atom-Smasher and the Kimiyo Hoshi Dr. Light as part of the action.

It is a rare occurrence that my two favorite comic book bands have their issues released in the same week but IDW begins their next story arc in Jem and the Holograms this week with issue #7 and DC Comics brings us the next part in the saga of Black Canary(the band and Dinah herself) in issue #4. In the previous issue Black Canary’s youngest member Ditto disappeared and now the group must find her before its too late. Plus, what is the story behind the pre-name change former band member and what is her current agenda against Dinah and the group?

Finally, the long awaited Arkham Knight figure from the eponymous game should also be arriving this week from DC Collectibles to finish out the first series of this video-game based Batman toyline. On a side note, I’ve really appreciated all of the feedback I’ve gotten for the Yvonne Craig piece I did a few weeks back and if there’s any suggestions, criticisms or questions you’d like to ask me I can be reached at the Twitter address above or on Facebook.

That’s it for me this week- catch you next week with more toys and assorted miscellany.